Immortal
by Cylent Dragon
Summary: One side of Kenshin's thoughts on his past and future. From a unique perspective. Goes on to other Characters' as well, helps if you've read the remembrance arc of the Manga or seen the OVA.
1. Default Chapter

My Immortal  
  
Schizophrenic  
  
I am cast out. My soul sent down to Jigoku, to feel pain eternally. But is there really a heaven? This is a hades, a place of torture, a place of reward, for each and every thing we've done; this is our everlasting home now.  
  
My one comfort is to watch as my otherself, as Shinta continues on in his life. Himura Kenshin has died, only Shinta remains. A body that once shared two souls is now left with a single master. I will no longer have to fight to break out of that cage to get in control. I was defeated, if you think about it. But not by Shinta. I would not fall to that weakling.  
  
It was Hiko who truly banished me, gave the one who was in control absolute dominance, the right to never have to fight for his own body again. But it was my body first, really. I, as Shinta was born in a poor family that owed debts to our Daiyamo. My parents would have worked that debt off all their lives, but they died of Cholera. The sickness took my parents when I was but four. I was sold to pay off that debt; sold into the slave trade.  
  
Akane, Kasumi, Sakura  
  
Their sacrifice was noble. They died for me when I had known them but for a day. They died protecting me. I can only hope that death was kinder to them than life would have been. Who could know what they may have had to do while living.  
  
And even as I think these things, Shinta now proves the opposite. He believes only in the will to live. That life is so much better than death. No. Some things are worth dying for. Some things are worth killing for. He, of all people should have realized this.  
  
Even then, I knew that what Master Hiko had done was right. He protected me, an innocent at the time, from death at the cost of two other men's lives. I would do the same. So Hiko took me in, gave me a new name, a name that was mine alone. It still is. I am Himura Kenshin. I am The Hitokiri Battousai. It was at that moment I existed, that Shinta's mind, and soul, split in two. He was no longer one, but two completely separate entities. His mind needed one to endure, to cope with the changes. So Shinta slept for a time. He was, at times, present during my training (and yes, I say 'my' for Hiko was training a new creation, his "Heart of Sword".) but for the most part it was I who was consious. If indeed you can call the other side of it unconsiousness. For though when I was not in control, I watched, I learned. But I did not disagree with what Shinta continued to do, so I did not fight him, or try to regain control, I was happy to just watch. But Shinta found little to his intrest in my "Art of Murder" as Hiko would call it. (Though I disagree.)  
  
By this time Shinta was content to sleep and did not even watch for a time. Once I really started to work during the Bakumatsu though, he began to wake up. He did not understand what I was doing, or why. All he knew was that I killed, that I did so almost every night. For all he knew, I was a serial killer. He fought what I did, raged on the inside, struggled to tear loose. At times, when I was consentrating on other things so very deeply, he would manage to wrest control away from me. My fight with Kiyosato was one example of that, where he managed to flash into control for mear seconds before I forced myself back in control. He was horrified at what I had done. He wanted to make up for that. Of course he didn't.  
  
It was myself alone who put the flower on Kiyosato's corpse.  
  
Shinta did not----would not, understand what I was doing. I suppose he was too scarred by the incident with the bandits in our childhood. He said all killing was a mortal sin, something he could never really atone for. I believe I was justified for what I did.  
  
I was fighting for the comon people, for those who could not fight for themselves. I was not wrong in doing so. I am condemned for killing, but by people who do not understand that is was not fun, it was not enjoyable. I did not take peverse pleasure from it like Shishio did. I was saddened by every person I killed, but if I could save thousands of people from pain in the future, wasn't it worth the life of a few men?  
  
I know that this is not what that rurouni (and yes, I say the word in contempt) thinks. He is too built up on self-loathing to realize all the lives he protected. He does not seem to realize that not all wrong can be righted without killing. And if we just stood by, then innocents would die. Not everyone is good. The human soul is evil. We can only do our best and fail, but keep on trying, no matter what the cost.  
  
And then Tomoe came into my----our, life. Like a fresh scent of spring, in a very litteral way, she drifted in and the image, sound, smell of her would not leave me be. Even that first night, with her sleeping in my futon, she kept me up. I was nervous, for the first time in my life. Feeling more scared then I did after, during and before my first kill.  
  
I had hoped she would leave, that the smell of her would drift away with the breezes of oncoming winter, but fate would, of course, not have that. And much as I fought it, I did have feeligns for her, long before we were 'married'.  
  
And then we did live together; share the same futon, though without the sacred consumation of marriage. And I did not have to kill for the longest of times. Shinta was content with my new turn of life and I stepped back and, hoping to appease him, let him take limited control. But it was I who loved her, loved her more than anyone or anything else, more than life. Then she told me what I was to her, and what I had been to her. And for one, blissful night, I loved her and she me.  
  
How I wish that had never ended.  
  
Though it should be to my shame (though it is not) I was the one she fooled, not Shinta. He seemed not to care all that much. I was willing to do anything for her, and willing to forfeit all to have her back, even when she left.  
  
I do not wish to think about what happened that day. I do not wish to remember what happened at that secluded shrine. Shinta tried to break forth, but my resolve was too strong. His 'survive at any cost ' drive kicked in, but my love for Tomoe was stronger.  
  
The only thing I regret in life was that *I* took the life of my beloved.  
  
And yet, she lifted the curse Kiyosato had laid upon my left cheek.  
  
I finished the Bakumatsu; I fought with men I truly respect, with Okita and Saito. And then I regressed into the darkness of Shinta's head. I had no more wish for life. I did not even wish to watch, but simply melt away into oblivion.  
  
The one small thing Shinta did to my satisfaction was defending my name. To keep the "Hitokiri Battousai" mine. And that, of course, is how he met Kaoru. I slowly grew intersted in life again. Not for Kaoru though. She was annoying, and the melodramatic romance that ensued was not at all to my taste. But still, I believed that Shinta deserved happiness. I had taken so much away, this small joy he deserved.  
  
However, he could not always defend his love. So I did. I would break through when I had to, to give him his chances with that silly Kamiya girl. Every time I reapeared over the next year was to help him save her. Only one time did I break through for my own emjoyment, and that was hard enough to do. I had grown weak during that decade.  
  
It is true, I do not enjoy killing, but the thought of a good duel...with the wolf of mibu no less, that was much too tempting. Shinta was fighting anyway, and there was no chance *he* could win. That blow he delivered at the end though, heh, I hadn't expected that. I must give him some credit at times.  
  
And then when he let her go...that far passed my expectations. I was afraid I would have to step in again to get him to do the right thing. I could have done without the hug though, I wish only for Tomoe and to be that close to any woman besides her is far from anything I desire.  
  
And then, when he was attempting to learn the Hiten-Mitsurugi-Ryu- Amakakeryu-no-hirameki, I needed to step in to help him along there as well. He repayed me well of course. He conquered it on his own and banished me forever.  
  
I am the Hitokiri Battosai, Kenshin Himura, heart of sword. And I have died.  
  
Shinta is still alive. He carries my name, my nickname, but he is not me. He had two people inside his body, now there is just one. He is using my sword tecniques, my trained body. That is not Shinta's, he stole it from me.  
  
I do hope he wins though, against Shishio. Shishio has an evil idea, he does not understand that every life is precious and the only ones who deserve to die are the ones who killed already.  
  
Shinta should live, he has killed no one, I am the one who deserved to die, and died I have. Shinta is not responsible. No matter how wrong Shinta's thoughts are, he is fighting on the right side.  
  
Saito is right. He shows no regret for doing the right thing. The cost is high, and it is sad, but it is worth it in the end. If I had died back then, it would have been worth it. I do not regret what I did in my life.  
  
And now I will find Tomoe's soul. She was my love, though Shinta still remembers her. She loves me though, not him and I love her and will not take another, foolish little girl like Kaoru. Let Shinta have his naïve woman. I will stay with my love, who took away her fiance's curse.  
  
Ah, Kiyosato. Perhaps she is not mine to love for eternity. But that is fine, I loved her once and she showed me how to live. That is good enough. Even a hitokiri can love, and still does.  
  
Ah Shinta, a hitokiri is a kitokiri till he dies, but the Hitokiri Battousai is dead. The Hitokiri lives no longer. Let not those words haunt you any more. My immortal soul will watch how you live your life. I will be the one to watch you, so live, Shinta, live.  
  
AN. Um, ok, hope you all liked that. I just got fed up with the way the rurouni was acting, and how different his whole ideals were from the battousai and decided to write this. That and I can't stand kaoru compared to Tomoe.yeah. But you guys probably figured that out from reading this, huh? So anyway, this will be a series-ish thing. I'll being doing the thoughts of several different people after they have died. So far I'm thinking Okita, Souzo Sanoske, and Yumi, but I'll be glad to take suggestions. Heck, if you want I might even do Shishio. And then at the end, they can all have a big party in Hades.not really. Yeah, and as for the afterlife.um, I 'm just sorta making it up to fit the story. Let's face it, Rurouni Kenshin didn't stay true to any particular beliefs so niether am i. Hades is more or less like the Greek version in this story, just a place that holds both punishment and rewards. So yeah, reviews are great and corrections and ideas are cool too. Arigatou! 


	2. Consumption

My Immortal  
  
Consumption  
  
A hospital.  
  
Of all places, of all ways to go. A hospital. Not honor in battle, no going out and fighting for what I believe in. Never again will I have the joy to look evil in the face and slay it without hesitation.  
  
A hospital. Well, I suppose there is some good come of that. I was not defeated by mortal man, but by immortal disease, by the one thing that man cannot conquer, cannot fight. No matter how strong the spirit, all who meet it die. I am----- was----- helpless against it. But I lasted a long time, no one can deny me that. My men did not know, or so I pray.  
  
I spent all my time fighting to keep them ignorant of my condition. Perhaps if I had gone to a doctor earlier----but I am not going to let my mind go down those paths. And yet I am so young. So young and dead. I suppose that moping about that won't help though. Every time I begin to get too sardonic I must remember how I was in life. Not as if I am in anyway restricted to a smile. I am perfectly capable of showing other emotions on my face. I frequently did, but not in public. Not when civilians are present.  
  
But my men....they saw how I fought. They saw the way I put my whole self into battle, and still enjoyed it. Not the bloodlust of it mind you, but the game of it, the strategy. I loved that rush when I found a worthy opponent, but they also saw how I mourned my actions, and mourned the fact that I had to kill. I did not enjoy killing. I did it because I had to, but I did enjoy the fight. I would not have stepped back from any of the choices I made.  
  
And even after giving all my soul to the fight, I died from disease. Forgotten in some hospital erected for those of us condemned to death by fate, unable to wield a blade against this invisible enemy.  
  
At least before I went, I got to fight the assassin. I didn't even know his name. But what a fight, how glorious the quick movements of his blade and the staccato returns of my own. What a worthy opponent. How sad we could not finish our duel, how sad that we could not do it when we were both at our best. But by that time, the sickness had already completely taken my lungs, and exertions such as fighting caused such a strain.  
  
And then Saito-san stepped in. He said he'd known about my sickness for a while. How sad. I tried...but I don't think the rest of the Shinsengumi knew, I hope, I pray. I have to admit, it was rather hard to keep anything from Saito.  
  
Yet he was so good at keeping things from the rest of us, though in a different way than I. I remember the day I found out he had a wife! I nearly died laughing. Literally, when I was finally alone after that, I coughed up so much blood...so very much. I am in the business of killing, yet seeing all that blood splatter into my own hands and then looking into the water's reflection and to see it splattered across my pale face...it made me sick.  
  
I can distinctly remember that smell of life-blood, and the thickness in my mouth, the iron aftertaste and the mucus caught up with it. The burbling of my breath, the feeling as if I were drowning from the inside, suffocated by my own blood...and the pain from the racking in my chest, the shudders that went through my body leaving me gasping on the floor for a long time afterwards.  
  
Of course I had to clean it all up. If anyone came in and saw all that blood they would suspect. I could leave the flecks on my uniform though. There were more there that were not my own. And when Saito said he smelled blood that one time...I used to be able to smell blood too, before my own breath smelled of it, before the smell never left me, even in my dreams. And I dreamed a lot, as I slept when I could.  
  
I was always so tired then too, I remember many men inviting me out to a teahouse with them, or to walk with them to some brothel or other, but I refused. I could not go like that. I would just curl up in my futon and try to sleep without dwelling on how short of a time I had left. I knew I would die soon, die young. And then I could have probably used distraction more than any other time in my life.  
  
I remember one night I did go out and did enjoy myself at a teahouse. I don't remember the name. But there was one geisha there, charming and coy and beautiful...her painted face and ivory-white neck...  
  
Komagata...Yumi  
  
That was it. I was quite taken with her...it showed I suppose, the men teasing me for days after. They had every right to though, most of them being older than me. And I went when I could; to the teahouse parties I knew she would be at. Had I lived longer, had I the money, I would have liked to become her danna, though I was but a captain of the Shinsengumi. I know I was well known. I had been allowed to join a dojo when I was but eleven, so young. And I fought when I was younger. But only an unsuccessful Geisha would ever take me as their danna.  
  
But I hope she lived through the Bakamatsu. I hope she is living a good life, enjoying herself, doing what she wants to do, though the chances of a geisha doing that are slim.  
  
She, of course, did not know I was sick either. I could not afford to let anyone know. Not only for my own pride either. For my men. It would have brought down their morale. To see the youngest, one of the most well known cut down in his prime, and not even by an opposing blade.  
  
I might have been happy to die by that hitokiri's blade. That might have satisfied me. Though I hope it would have been quick...I am no coward but I would prefer to die easy and quick...and by the blade of another, not forced to hara-kiri by some stain to my name. Ah, but what use is it now...it is all said and done, nothing can be changed. I have all eternity to think and to live with my very soul's consumption by bits of regret.  
  
And maybe, one day in these halls of the after-world, I will meet that hitokiri, and know his name and his ideas and him. And the cry that drove him to what he did.  
  
That we may both be consumed together. 


	3. Amnesia

My Immortal  
  
Amnesia  
  
I cannot help but feel a bitterness because the government I risked my life for killed me. But it goes beyond bitterness, beyond bitterness and into the depths of despair and betrayal and more so into rage unbelievable. I feel a rage so deep it consumes me, a hatred, an irony, a wonder if this world has any rule, any justice. One government was as bad as the past. They all just want power and they deceive all who fight for them. I want to scream in anguish, to let such a cry for justice rip this government to shreds.  
  
And yet, as the same time I feel a self-loathing that I thought not possible. I cannot help but hate myself for being the one who was led astray; I fell for their words, I believed them.  
  
And worse than that, I led others to their deaths, to their trust in a false idea, a false government. And nothing I can think of will console me.  
  
But then, must I hold a grudge, even from my dark sepulcher, to a government which will be just like all the others? Dynasties and regimes rise and fall throughout history, and through each people die. People disagree and they consequently die for what they believe in. Is any government better than the next? There are levels of course but.....is the government I laid my life down for, the Meiji, is it really any better than the Tokogawa? The Tokogawa which suppressed the peasant, killed them and treated them like dirt because they were born into their lot?  
  
And the Meiji has done the same thing. Killed me for holding them accountable. For speaking the truth. Are all Governments such an abomination to justice!? Isn't that their point in being, to fulfill justice, to bring order, yet governments cause nothing but chaos and war. Death, killing, destruction; everything that is evil. They are the cause of orphans like Katsu and Sanosuke.  
  
I know now that many would question my saying that, for I am—was—a man of the sword and I killed, fought, destroyed. I probably created orphans myself and widows and grieved innumerable friends, but not without reason. I am no murderer. And I will fight for what I believe in, but not kill unnecessarily.  
  
Governments now though.....they aren't here to help the people, that's just a way to get the people support so they can gain, or stay, in power. They only do good to maintain order to gratify their own desires.  
  
Ah, but what is the use of this oration to myself, no one will listen. I'm dead, it's hard to listen. I hope I have nor poisoned Katsu and Sanosuke with my ideas...they have probably decided to hate the Meiji just because of me. I wish they didn't.  
  
I hope they can just forgive and forget.....being angry won't change anything. They can't clear our name, they can't clear me. I'm trash in the public view, but I was never anything else. In the end, I'm not really worth remembering. No one ever really cared about me. Sure I took the kids in, but I also introduced them pain, to fighting, to death.  
  
But in the end, what did I do to be remembered? I never loved anyone, never had a family, never really did something for anyone. Those kids just looked up to me because I was all they knew. My name isn't worth remembering, most certainly not worth taking. Perhaps it is best that I didn't ever marry anyone, didn't pass along a worthless, a worthless bloodline.  
  
I would go back and relive my past in this hell, but I don't remember it...like my name, it's not worth remembering. Though at times.....I do wish I could remember my past, I wish that someone would remember me. Remember me, not for what I stood for, not for what I went through and not for the rage I feel now..... wish someone would remember me for me.....  
  
Even as I watch Sanosuke, he fights only out of hatred for the Meiji, I doubt he truly remembers me.....  
  
And yet I would not wish to haunt him. Let me feel this unholy rage, but not he boy.....though he is now almost my age.....not the boy. Yet I feel he calls my spirit, my memory only in outrage for the government....is that all I am, even to him? Nothing more than an excuse?  
  
Or is that love that he feels for me, he may be unable to rest until I am avenged? I am not worth avenging, the other men who died perhaps, but not me.  
  
But remember me, please, remember me.....i so fear being forgotten...forgotten in anger, my very soul being covered up in rage....remember me.....  
  
Remember me as I truly was, not this angry spirit that is left.....yes, this is the self loathing I feel.....I hate my very spirit and the emotion that flows through it, and I wish I could return to the man I once was......I suppose I sound hypocritical, first admitting my rage, then my desire that know one else share my intense hate....and then my desire not o be forgotten. Oh how complicated, I wish that death would make things simple, but it only complicates one's feelings.  
  
And now if I could only sort through them, list them off.....that first I feel rage towards the fact that I was betrayed and that it was my own foolishness that lead me to that betrayal. That second that I feel remorse that I led others to their own vain deaths and that all government are as peverse, if not more so, as this one. Third I wish that only I would continue to hate, and that others could move on with their lives, and last of all that I would be remembered....  
  
Remember me...... 


End file.
